"You and I will get along just fine," the sheikha continued. "I will know what to expect from you, Your Majesty."
She would expect him to act like his father. He could only hope that she would be surprised.
"Please, call me Walid."
"Walid." She took advantage of the invitation without any further prompting. As if she'd been waiting for it. "I appreciate your candor. Let us always be open with each other. My granddaughter is rebellious. I expect you to deal with that."
A woman who did not do what she was told, or behave in the way that was expected. Once, the idea would have irritated him. Now, with Noelle's soothing hand stroking his spine, he could see the advantages. But from the short interaction he had had with Kalilah, he could also see the problems. Hellish problems.
"I have experience in such things," he assured Sheikha Farouk.
"Once she is over this stage, once she is broken in, if you will--" Broken? Did Sheikha Farouk hear herself? Broken, like a horse? "--she will be an excellent wife. Or at least an obedient one who will not embarrass you in public. Especially when threatened with you taking a second wife."
Walid looked around for a drone with a camera taking digital video of his every reaction, but he saw clear skies. So this was not some kind of a horrific prank. Sheikha Farouk understood nothing about her own granddaughter. He had spent very little time with Kalilah, and even he knew that she would love to have a second wife in the mix--if not to conspire with, to torment.
After telling the sheikha that his people would be in contact to make arrangements, he quickly concluded the conversation.
Noelle, not looking at him, picked something up from the sand beside her and handed it to him.
Coffee. He didn't usually indulge, but he needed it. And he hadn't even known he needed it. Somehow Noelle did. He took a grateful sip. The delicious, hot liquid warmed him from the inside, and he thanked her.
"This coffee is amazing," she said, helping herself to her own tin mug of the brew, yet her tone sounded bland.
"Suzette will only serve coffee from Khalis. The country is known for it."
"That was the call, wasn't it?" she asked.
She could not have understood a word of his conversation, since she did not know Arabic. His first response was to ask her to clarify what she meant. But he quickly discarded the idea as unworthy. He did not know how she knew, but she did. Pretending to misunderstand would help no one, nor put off the unavoidable for longer than a few seconds. "Yes. The date for the engagement ceremony is now set."
She did not raise her voice, or demand answers from him. She merely nodded, showing no emotion. When she wished, Noelle could be as closed off and distant as any woman he had ever met. "And that would be?"
"Tomorrow." Tomorrow. A single day before the next payment for the Nahr pipeline was due.
The word consumed the air between them for a moment. Each of them took a drink of their coffee.
"Let me be the first to say congratulations, then." She placed her tin mug slightly closer to him. Without thinking, he clinked it, in a parody of a champagne toast.
"Noelle--" He had no idea how he could explain, how he could put things right with her, but he wished to try.
"Please stop," she interrupted. "We had a great time together. A happy fling. A meaningless affair."
He was not a man to anger suddenly, but those words coming out of her mouth... He grabbed her thigh in a harsh grip. She looked down at his hand in disbelief. "You know me well. You know I do not have meaningless affairs."
"Do I?" she asked. For some reason, the question made him release his hold on her. "Do I know you well?"
As well as anyone ever has, he did not say. "Of course."
"What does that mean? It means something and I can't figure it out. I should know. It's glowing in my head like neon. I just don't know why."
Whatever she was talking about, it wasn't the conversation at hand. "Noelle, what we had between us. This. It was not meaningless. The opposite."
She shifted slightly, leaning away from him. He burned to close the sudden space between them, but restrained himself.
"Please stop. What we did last night was just a thing we did. It wasn't important."
Why was she saying this? She was lying, for no reason that he could think of. What was between them was special to him. It was the same for her.
And he knew he could easily make her admit she lied.
"I beg to differ." He raised his hand to cup the silken skin over her sharp jaw line. To place his thumb in the soft divot just under her earlobe.
To pull her in for a soul-stealing kiss.
She jumped to her feet, her face turned away from him.
He was about to remind her she hadn't been so shy last night when he remembered the phone call he had just made.
The ceremony would not happen for one more day, thus he was not yet technically engaged. Technicalities would not matter to her. And they should not matter to him.
Their relationship was over. No more touching. No more kissing.
She started to brush the dusting of sand off her, recovering her casual attitude. "I'm a big girl who makes my own decisions, Walid, and takes the consequences. We had great sex and a weird kind of fun poking at each other. That's all."
"No," he stated as he stood. "What happened between us had meaning to us both. I do not know why you pretend to deny it."
She spun to face him, emerald sparks in her eyes, flinging golden hair that caught in the sunlight. "Because I am responsible for my own actions, and I chose to sleep with you, this wasn't your fault. So there's nothing to be sad about here. Nothing to regret. And I don't have to live in your memory as one more damn thing to feel guilty over."
He had nothing to say, but stood there stunned. Of course he should feel guilty. Hadn't he abducted her--
"No, no, no." She grabbed his forearms, making him want to pull her to him. "I can see the wheels turning behind your eyes. Stop. Don't. Just don't. I don't regret this, and I can't stand it if you regret being with me."
This is not my fault, he told himself, as she had taught him last night. And as he said the words, he had begun to believe. So he assured himself again.
She was right. There was nothing to regret here. They could not be together, but he was a better person for having met Noelle Oldrich.
For having fallen in love with her.
"Promise me," she insisted. "No regret. No guilt."
He took her hand for the last time. "No guilt. I promise you, Noelle."
But as he watched her descend the dune to the camp, dangling her empty coffee cup from one finger, he found himself thinking. No guilt. Certainly. But no regret? He could not promise it.
He would never regret that he loved a pirate princess. And he would always regret that he let her go.
*****
Her bags were packed. The half-dozen or so large suitcases lined the doorway like good soldiers awaiting transport to their next assault target.
Only a few things were missing. The things Walid had taken from her in their first meeting. Like...
The door to the room flung open.
"Hey, that's mine!" she couldn't help yelling. Because the person had Noelle's cell phone in her hand. "Give it here."
She snatched the phone and hugged it to her chest. Her beloved iPhone, and what it meant. Connection to the world. To her fake rich friends and her real normal friends. To Elise, who had trusted her.
"This too," said the unimportant person, offering Noelle her Kindle.
Noelle let out an involuntary "Woot!" Now she could get back to The Earl with the Dragon Tattoo and find out how Maeve Llwyd and Con defeated the shadow druid known as Gallows and saved England.
"And all this," said the unimportant person, "will be mine. Thought I would check it out."
Chilled fingers danced down Noelle's spine, snapping her out of her digital connectivity haze. Over four hundred iMessages and... Wait.
She peeled her ey
eballs from the display to see the person looking back at her was Kalilah. Even though the girl said she wanted to check out the stuff that would be hers, she wasn't. Her attention was locked on Noelle.
Something about Kalilah just wasn't right.
It wasn't her outfit, or her makeup, or her hair. They were all flawless. She wore a floor-length off-white stretchy lace mermaid-style Donna Karan that showed off every curve while also ticking the traditional "modesty" boxes--she was technically covered from her neck to her Coach stilettos. It looked stunning against her dark skin. She also rocked an updo with strings of probably real pearls woven into her midnight curls. Her logos were subtler this time, only in the gold belt cinching her waist. And all over the shoes.
She was going to knock 'em dead at the dublah thing, her engagement ceremony. And the wedding? Between her style and Walid's devastating looks, the two of them were going to be on the cover of every magazine that could afford the pics.
"Everything in here will be mine," reiterated Kalilah, putting her gold clutch down. "This table will be mine. That couch will be mine. And everything through there."
With the last phrase, Kalilah nodded toward the door that connected this room to Walid's chambers.
"Sure," Noelle said, raising her mental shields. "So?"
Kalilah put on a formulated smile. "You do not have to go, you know. You could stay here. I do not mind. In fact"--Noelle flinched in advance of what the girl was going to say next--"we could have a lot of fun together."
Noelle was supposed to be shocked by the proposition, she guessed. Horrified by the indecent idea of sharing Walid with his new wife. She wasn't. But share Walid? No. Just no.
She put on a bored expression. "What do you want?"
"As I said, this bed is mine now, but there is room for two. Or all three." Kalilah looked at her from under expertly made-up lashes.
"Room for a camel, too. That's not happening either."
The younger woman lost a little bit of her painted-on cool. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"This thing you're trying." Noelle circled her hand in Kalilah's direction. "Paris does it better. I'm a rich girl, too, remember?"
"Paris," Kalilah said with contempt, and tossed her head, making the strands of pearls dance, "is not going to be a queen. And Kim is the new Paris."
"Is that what you're going to be?"
Kalilah smiled sweet venom. "Well, I know what you are not going to be."
"Fair enough," Noelle quickly conceded, mostly to annoy her verbal sparring partner. "I'm not sure what I'm going to be yet."
Even though it didn't seem like a lot of doors were open to her now, her experience in Askar gave her something she hadn't had before. Insight. Hope. If she couldn't find a door, maybe there'd be a window. And if there wasn't a window, she just had to do was find a chainsaw and make her own exit...
"I thought you marrying Walid was your grandmother's thing." When Kalilah gave a devious little smirk, Noelle cocked her head and looked closer. "It wasn't her idea, was it? It's your plan. You manipulated her into it. You're ambitious. You know what you want. What exactly is that?"
Kalilah flopped into a chair, which she managed to do elegantly. "What could possibly be higher than being Queen of Askar?"
"Loads of things." Noelle shrugged. "It's a pretty small country. And you have to know that Walid is a working king. He runs this place like a corporation. It's a job for him. He spends his days in meetings, brokering deals."
None of this seemed like news to Kalilah, who just smiled.
"And I hope you like the clothes you've got now," Noelle went on. "Walid isn't spendy."
Broke, actually, but that wasn't her secret to tell.
"Grandmother has money," returned Kalilah breezily. "Do not worry."
Hmmm. Right. "So, you've got money. You're not really interested in Walid, or in Askar. What is in this for you?"
Kalilah leaned forward, for a second showing enthusiasm. "Do you know what being queen could lead to?"
"Could lead to?"
The younger woman realized she'd given away too much. She bit her bottom lip, then realized she would mess up her lipstick and relaxed her face.
Noelle needed to push for the rest. She got the feeling Kalilah was actually dying to tell someone. "So you want to be queen so it can lead to something for you? What would it lead to for a rich girl like you--"
"Or you," interrupted Kalilah.
"--except spending more time in the public eye? Ohhh." It hit Noelle like a dinosaur-killing asteroid. Kalilah wanted the public eye more than anything else.
An ambition to be queen, her outrageous behavior.
So many people would love to hate her, and would obsessively consume every tidbit of gossip they could find about her.
"It's a career move for you. You don't seem to have a talent for anything but attracting attention to yourself. So... reality show, then? Desperate Housewives of the Middle East? You know Walid would never let cameras in his palace, right?"
Kalilah took a sudden interest in her gold-painted fingernails.
"Oh my God. You're marrying him so you can divorce him," Noelle said. "That's your show."
Kalilah practically vibrated with excitement as she rose from the chair and grabbed Noelle's hands. Less like she had the other day in the waiting room to Walid's office, and more like a drowning woman grasping at a lifeline. "We're in early negotiations with a couple networks. But you know what would clinch it? Who would clinch it?"
She did know. Wasn't that hard to figure out. "Me."
"You." Kalilah's eyes glowed with dark fire. "There would have to be some hair-pulling, of course, but only for the cameras. That would nail the deal. The sheikh's ex-wife versus his ex-mistress. The world would eat it up. Think of what we could do."
Noelle shook off the younger woman's hands. "I am thinking about it. I'd have my own money, my independence. I'd never have to see my father again."
Kalilah reached into the shiny clutch she'd set on the little table beside the chair, and drew out a phone in a sequined pink case that didn't look like it should belong to a queen. "Let me make a call--"
"Stop. Shut up. Let me enjoy the fantasy for a second," Noelle ordered, and she closed her eyes to block everything out but the pictures flashing through her head. Her, followed by cameras, walking into Elise's store to shoot a scene that would mean thousands of dollars in sales. Her, making calls to organize charity events. Her, sponsoring a small center for girls who wanted to start their own businesses. Would the show be interested in her adventures on campus if she went back to college? Of course they would. The boys. The parties. The sorority sister hijinks.
The hair-pulling. Oh, God, the hair-pulling.
Noelle opened her eyes to see Kalilah, tense and expectant, trying to stare right through her skin to see her intentions underneath.
Thinking about Kalilah with Walid had once made Noelle want to bitch-slap the girl. She could have that chance, if she wanted it.
This was Noelle's moment. All she had to do was say yes, and she'd have everything she ever wanted. She'd have her independence, a job, she'd have people supporting her, and a purpose.
"You're offering me something unbelievable, Kalilah. Thank you. I've wanted my freedom forever, and you hand it to me on a silver platter--"
"Yay!" said Kalilah, and grabbed for the phone.
Noelle clamped her hand around the younger woman's wrist, just inches away from the touchscreen. "It's too expensive, Kalilah. I have to say no. I'll find another way to get out of my father's house. Even if I have to use that chainsaw."
"Chainsaw?" Kalilah screwed up her pert nose for a second--and then her face became a mask of panic. "You will not tell Walid, will you? If he cancels the wedding--"
She laughed. "It wouldn't make any difference to him. Now get out. I have a plane to catch."
Eleven
WALID'S SISTER-IN-law, Gwendolyn Spenser-Al Kalam, tapped the toe of her insanely high heels and
scowled at him with the gale force of a tsunami.
"Welcome back to Askar, ukhti al-sagheera. It is always pleasant to see you." He took Gwendolyn's hand and kissed the back of it in formal Western style before she could object.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, not bothering with a greeting.
"Greeting my beloved little sister," he said. "And irritating her husband." He might be at peace with his brother, but that did not mean he did not enjoy baiting Ithnan from time to time.
The highest level of Askari society was in attendance for the engagement ceremony. At least the several dozen or so of them who happened to be in the country to attend on the very short notice of a single day.
It had been a simple matter for his assistant to hire the musicians and let Suzette know she was to serve hors d'oeuvres for one hundred or so. A pair of officiants were acquired to pronounce blessings from two different religions, and it was done.
And, amidst the designer gowns and free-flowing champagne, he felt as if everything in his life was sliding into a deep morass.
Gwen dropped her voice well below the sound level of the string quartet playing pleasant background music for the party. "That's not what I'm talking about. Your new bride."
He thought about asking her to put a verb in that last sentence, but did not bother. He knew her concerns. He shared them. He simply did not want to share those concerns with Gwendolyn's husband.
Ithnan stood across the room, chatting with some elders in traditional robes, one hand in the pocket of his tuxedo, the other wrapped around the stem of a champagne flute.
Thalatha, as usual, leaned against the bar. Young men and women had gathered around him, talking too loudly and looking drunk. Thalatha caught Walid's eye and offered a silent, sarcastic toast.
"It is past time I married. She is suitable," he assured Gwendolyn.
She didn't pause for even one breath before jumping back at him. "You're not as good at lying as Ithnan. Do you need lessons? He can help you out."
"Gwendolyn, there is no need for concern."
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